


Rooibos and Jasmine: An Erik/Hesekiel Ship Manifesto

by Delphi



Category: The Tea Dragon Series - Katie O'Neill, The Tea Dragon Society (Webcomic)
Genre: Battle Couple, Canon Relationships, Embedded Images, Interspecies, M/M, Retirement, Ship Manifesto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-16 13:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21037019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: Just as it says on the tea canister: a ship manifesto for the canon pairing of Erik and Hesekiel from Katie O'Neill's Tea Dragon series.





	Rooibos and Jasmine: An Erik/Hesekiel Ship Manifesto

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tanaqui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/gifts).

> All art credited to Katie O'Neill.

**The Tea Dragon Series**

_Hesekiel: "Those were good days, adventuring about with a big idiot and his sword."  
Erik: "Yeah. But running the teahouse turned into an adventure of its own."_

_The Tea Dragon Society_ (2016) and _The Tea Dragon Festival_ (2019) are a pair of all-ages graphic novels by Eisner Award winner Katie O’Neill. The books are set in a cozy fantasy world populated by a wide variety of people and creatures, including tea dragons, a tiny subspecies of dragon that grows tea leaves from their horns.

Tea dragons are absolutely adorable.

Both books explore ideas about community, tradition, and living a meaningful life. The first book features Greta, a young apprentice blacksmith who finds herself doubting the usefulness of her trade in a world marching toward modernity. When she rescues a strange animal from danger in the marketplace, her act of kindness leads her to new friends and the discovery of an ancient art. The second book features Rinn, a would-be cook who learns to see their little mountain village and their place within it through new eyes after waking the village’s mystical shapeshifting guardian from a decades-long slumber.

In addition to shared themes and the presence of fussy little dragon companions, the books are linked by the characters of Rinn’s uncle Erik and Greta’s mentor Hesekiel. A pair of itinerant monster hunters turned tea shop owners, Erik and Hesekiel’s partnership spans decades in their supporting storylines, from their first formal introductions over the slain body of a demonic beast to their idyllic semi-retirement in the wake of a life-changing injury.  
  
  


**Erik**

_Erik: "Well, now you know my secret. I'm a mountain bumpkin!"  
Hesekiel: "Oh, I knew."_

Hailing from the remote alpine village of Silverleaf, Erik set out as a young man to see the world and find adventure. While cheerful and easygoing by nature, he was nonetheless a fierce swordsman in those days and financed his travels by working as a bounty hunter and slaying dangerous beasts. He is known to act from the heart, protective of those he loves and tending to speak frankly and occasionally quip before he thinks.

Erik's known relatives include a mother, at least two siblings who worked as travelling merchants, and two niblings, Rinn and Aya. He keeps a sturdy little Rooibos tea dragon that he fondly refers to as a "ratbag" and a "manipulative little bugger."  
  
  


**Hesekiel**

_Erik: "Don't like getting your hands dirty?"  
Hesekiel: "No, but I suspect you rather enjoy it."_

Little is known about Hesekiel's past prior to meeting Erik aside from the fact that he is a Sylke, a member of the long-lived species responsible for first breeding and domesticating tea dragons.

Hesekiel has a dry sense of humour and a keen appreciation for manners, protocol and tradition. During his travelling days, he proved to be well-versed in healing and battle magic but preferred to let someone else do the fighting. His delicate Jasmine tea dragon is, like him, decidedly more picky and refined than the other members of the household.  
  
  


**Tea for Two**

_Erik: "You shouldn't have to give up exploring and adventure because of me. You loved that."  
Hesekiel: "It was never the adventure that I loved."_

Is there any better pick-up than lending a strapping young adventurer a hand against a three-headed fire monster and then telling him you're looking for someone with a big sword? This is Hesekiel's approach when he first meets Erik, and Erik is only too happy to confirm that this describes him to a tee.

The two join forces and are soon travelling the world by land and sea with their tea dragons in tow. Somewhere along their journey, this pragmatic partnership and flirtatious friendship blossoms into love. By the time Erik next visits home a few years into their partnership, he and Hesekiel are a couple through and through, communicating in teasing comments and understanding glances. By the end of their trip, the l-word is used for what feels like the first time, and they finally admit out loud that they see themselves spending the rest of their lives together.

These plans to retire together "someday" are unexpectedly expedited, however, when Erik is grievously injured. Holding a monster at bay while Hesekiel prepares a spell, Erik is struck by the creature's tail and thrown to the ground, breaking his back.While Hesekiel is able to defeat the monster with an emotional burst of magic and heal Erik as best he can, Erik nonetheless loses the ability to walk. In the wake of this injury, Erik tries to give Hesekiel an out, saying that this isn't what Hesekiel signed up for, but Hesekiel makes it clear that being with Erik is what matters to him.

By the time the two meet Greta, the heroine of _The Tea Dragon Society_, they have reached a comfortable and contented middle age, happy with the life they've made together and to share some of the wisdom and practices learned during their adventuring days with the next generation.  
  
  


**Further Adventures**

Virtually no fanworks yet exist exclusively featuring this ship, but with the second book just having come out last month, it's high time to change that. While some canon ships don't lend themselves to fanworks because their story has been told in its entirety, Erik and Hesekiel's relationship hits that sweet spot of having plenty of romantic inspiration in the text while leaving an equal amount of room for speculation.

Which fic tropes and genres are just begging to be written? 

_Backstory and Futurefic_  
And everything in between! We don't know much about Erik and Hesekiel's pasts, what their early journeys together really looked like, or even how they both came to find their tea dragon companions.We also don't know what new journeys lie ahead for them, whether in their day to day lives at the teahouse or in some more surprising turn of events that might bring them out of retirement for one more bounty.

_Confessions and First Times_  
Aside from a very sweet forehead touch and a few interesting blushes, canon gives us very little about exactly how Erik and Hesekiel realized their feelings for each other, when those feelings were confessed, and how a physical relationship might have unfolded. Who made the first move, and were there misunderstandings along the way?

_Campaigns and Casefic_  
The Tea Dragon universe is rich and beautiful, populated by diverse peoples against fantastical landscapes. With years of Erik and Hesekiel's globetrotting and monster-hunting to draw on, there's no limit to the stories waiting to be told about lands beyond the two towns featured in the series so far and their inhabitants. 

_Domesticity_  
Whether it's sharing bedrolls and cooking for each other on the road or setting up their new house when they retire from adventuring, the details are waiting to be filled in around the central theme of Erik and Hesekiel being "home" to each other.

_Hurt/Comfort_  
Canon provides its share of brief but lovingly rendered scenes in which Hesekiel heals and cares for Erik, but there is so much more to explore about their journey in the aftermath of Erik's injury. Beyond that is a wealth of opportunity for scrapes and close calls over the course of their travels, from battles gone wrong to hypothermia, hostile geography, and the return of old enemies.

_Cross-Cultural and Xeno_  
We know a little about the culture in Silverleaf where Erik grew up, but almost nothing about what it means to be a Sylke. Whether it's vastly different ideas about courtship and love or just an appreciation for the novelty of how each other are made, this ship has no end of possibilities for fans interested in romance where two worlds collide.  
  
  


**The Official Reading List**

> 

_The Tea Dragon Society_ (Available online as a [free webcomic](https://teadragonsociety.com) or [in print/ebook](https://www.worldcat.org/title/tea-dragon-society/oclc/982654423))

_The Tea Dragon Festival_ (Available [in print/ebook](https://www.worldcat.org/title/tea-dragon-festival/oclc/1117771347))

[The Tea Dragon Almanac](http://teadragonsociety.com/almanac/) (A short guide to tea dragons by Katie O'Neill)

Katie O'Neill's [Twitter](https://twitter.com/strangelykatie) / [Tumblr](https://strangelykatie.tumblr.com/) / [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/strangelykatie/)


End file.
